Obverse: Shield showing St Georges Cross over an anchor placed diagonally, ornamental border flags behind, Royal Crown above. Legend: 'SALVAGE ASSOCIATION OF LONDON INCORPD BY ROYAL CHARTER'. Reverse legend: 'PRESENTED BY THE SALVAGE ASSOCIATION OF LONDON', 'IN RECOGNITION OF SERVICES RENDERED BY GUA. J.Y. SANCHEZ (name incuse) AT THE WRECK OF BRITISH STEAMSHIP QUEEN ELIZABETH NEAR GIBRALTAR A.D. 1874'. Fitted with a loop and ring and dark blue ribbon.

On the 12th March 1874, the SS ‘Queen Elizabeth’ of Glasgow, homeward-bound from Calcutta with a very valuable cargo of tea, wheat, hides and 2, 500 chests of indigo, went ashore near Tarifa in Spain due to navigational error. Press reports estimated the aggregate loss at £535, 000. The ship got a line onshore and landed 27 passengers and crew in a lifeboat which made three trips between ship and shore. During a fourth attempt, the boat capsized and twenty passengers and crew with additionally three Spanish volunteers, were drowned. Colonel Gordon, the British consul in Algeciras, rescued four more people on a raft before losing the end of the rope that provided contact between the ship and the shore. A mule party carrying line-throwing rocket apparatus arrived eventually after a difficult journey, joining a party of Royal Artillery. The remaining 19 survivors on board the ship could now be rescued by raft. Salvage operations to remove the cargo were under way at the end of the month. Before heavy gales on the 18 April eventually resulted in the vessel beaking up, 60 lighters removed approximately 2, 094 chests of indigo and shellec, 1, 300 chests of tea, 87 bags of rubber, 248 balesof cotton, 17 bales of tobacco, 2, 916 bags of wheat, 162 bales of jute besides a large quantity loose and about 50, 00 hides.